[…]
For the first time, after Takumi finished speaking, Alice did not immediately reply and go right back to her endless chatter.
She merely stood there, motionless, all expression withdrawn from her face, as if she had become a puppet frozen in place.
Of course, that was only how it looked at first glance. Takumi could see it very clearly: her entire face had actually gone taut, to the point that faint veins could be seen bulging near the edges of her cheeks, and those soft hands of hers were clenched tightly, as if she might erupt in the very next second.
Beside Alice, the flesh monster that had been relentlessly pursuing him this whole time had also stopped moving. Clearly, this change had come because of Alice, and while it proved that the flesh monster could indeed be guided and controlled by her, it also proved that Takumi's strategy had worked.
"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue? If you start flattering me now, maybe I'll be kind enough to give your friend back, you know."
A pleased smile spread across Takumi's face.
[…So the teacher is actually this nasty?]
The girl tilted her head slightly, a hint of confusion appearing on her face.
Ever since entering the Fujihana Middle School instance, this was the first time Takumi had seen her show such an expression.
He had to admit—it felt great.
Also, although this was meant to buy time to survive, the strategy itself was admittedly a bit strange.
The expression on Alice's face grew increasingly hesitant.
Takumi's words seemed to have had some kind of effect on her, making the monster possessing Miko unable to immediately strike him down.
And now that his injuries and stamina had recovered, there was no way Takumi would let this chance slip by.
Without the slightest hesitation, he leapt straight up from where he stood, shooting toward the ceiling with explosive force.
Bang!
Fragments scattered downward along with the heavy impact.
Takumi smashed through the ceiling with his head alone, his body wedging itself between the concrete layer and the soil above. Then, bracing with both hands, he forced himself upward again, bursting through in a violent jolt and forcibly pushing himself into the first floor.
The blood-red glow in his pupils slowly faded.
He glanced around. The place looked like a small meeting room. Many figures wearing sheep heads, duck heads, turtle heads, and other masks sat in their seats—now all turning to look at him at once. A chilling aura locked onto him in that instant.
"You lot aren't enough to stop me."
Completely unafraid, Takumi stood up. At some point, a cleaver had already appeared in his hand.
The power of Hedda's berserk blessing surged once more.
He could feel the eerie power of these "teachers" acting upon him.
But with the dual reinforcement of the blessing and Obsession Items, he didn't hesitate for even a moment. He strode forward and charged straight into the aberrations.
Cutting. Hacking. Tearing.
There were no battle cries, no roars—only silent advance, silent collapse, and increasingly labored breathing.
A sweet, metallic stench spread through the air, as blood slowly painted the floor crimson.
The meeting room door creaked open.
Then Takumi emerged, drenched in blood, limping forward. Behind him, the room was in utter ruin—not a single intact humanoid shape remained.
"Hah… hah…"
His breathing grew heavier.
In the corridor, Takumi could see figures dressed in student uniforms—eyes, mouths, noses, and ears all tightly sewn shut with thread.
Alice stood behind those students, watching him from afar.
This time, she wasn't smiling.
She simply stood there expressionlessly, staring straight at him.
…Looks like those words earlier really did get under her skin.
"Bringing out this many people… guess you really don't plan on getting your friend back, huh."
Takumi grinned, spat out one of his teeth, and laughed.
[…]
There was no reply.
Only the distorted student figures drifting closer, their movements erratic and unnatural.
Takumi turned and ran.
Then, because of the noise he made, he drew the attention of a Teacher Duck. Once this thing spots someone and lets out a cry, it severely hinders their movement—it feels as if all four limbs are filled with lead, making it nearly impossible to move.
Without the protection of the sheep-head mask identity, going head-on against these "teachers" was no easy task.
The "students" might be numerous, but they lacked special mechanics. The "teachers," however, were a different story.
So Takumi had no choice but to rely on his superhuman physique and sheer willpower, forcing his way forward. With a single swing, he cut off the duck-headed thing's head, then hacked apart its throat, severed its legs and one arm, and only then staggered onward, barely able to keep moving.
His brain was flooded with waves of intense dizziness.
After resisting all kinds of erosion and mental contamination, his body hadn't reached its limit yet—but his mind was already on the brink.
Can't fall asleep…
Takumi gasped for air, forcing himself to stay conscious as he kept running forward.
Click.
With a soft sound, the lights in the corridor he was in suddenly turned on.
Bang!
The next second, the lights went out—the switch had been destroyed.
Takumi tossed a small stone into the air, hurled it forward, then smashed another light switch further down the corridor.
These were stones he had picked up casually while crashing from the basement up to ground level. With the enhancement of Hedda's berserk blessing, he could throw them at near bullet-like speeds—easily destroying every light switch along his path.
It didn't take long for him to find the staircase.
Behind him, the number of pursuing "students" had exceeded a hundred. They packed the entire corridor, each one twisted and mutilated, making Takumi instinctively think of zombie movies.
Unlike before, Alice simply watched from afar, expressionless, making no move to approach—just observing.
What is this thing plotting now?
Already deeply wary of this aberration, Takumi didn't hesitate and sped up.
The layout of the second floor was no different from before. But fearing that Alice might create illusions again, Takumi moved with extreme caution, constantly observing his surroundings and every change in his senses.
Doing this while his mental strength was already at its limit was obviously unwise—but he had no choice.
Right now, the only thing he wanted was to reach the Residential Wing before he died, and use his life to confirm the basic situation of another area within Fujihana Middle School.
But clearly, that wasn't going to be easy.
Ring—ring—ring—
Amid the crisp ringing, all the lights suddenly turned on.
Without hesitation, Takumi smashed through a wall and entered the cafeteria behind it.
But the next instant, an overwhelming sense of being watched engulfed him.
It was the gaze of Principal Elephant.
Damn it—this floor is the cafeteria, not classrooms, so there are surveillance rules in place. And the place I broke into is a mid-tier dining hall… which means I've now committed consecutive violations.
Running was no longer an option.
The moment he felt that gaze, Takumi began rapidly losing control over his body.
[Disciplinary Office report—]
Screee—
A harsh noise burst from the broadcast system.
And Takumi had already swung his blade down in a straight arc—piercing through his own shoulder, driving it under the bone and pinning himself to the wall.
Using that method, in the final moment he still had control, he forcibly restrained his own actions.
The voice from the broadcast had already fallen silent.
Takumi's body struggled and began moving on its own, yet he was still stuck in place, unable to budge.
So the machete's priority… really was above even Principal Elephant's. But this hurt like hell. His mind clearly wanted to stop moving, yet his body refused to obey and kept going, tearing the wound through his shoulder even wider.
The cafeteria was empty. Under the lights, there was nothing here but rows of tables and chairs.
And Alice, standing in the doorway, watching Takumi from afar.
She still hadn't come any closer. She didn't speak, didn't move, didn't do anything at all. She was merely watching him.
Something… seemed wrong with this thing.
Even as his condition worsened by the second, Takumi still forced himself to think, to observe that Aberration whose state was clearly off.
The previous Alice had been less an Aberration than a madwoman who possessed Aberrant power. But now, this thing's capacity for thought seemed to have regressed. It had become more like a pure Aberration, as though emotions and feelings no longer existed within it at all.
Was it because my words forced her into taking the action of "protecting her friend," while her behavioral logic demanded that she "kill her friend"? Did those two completely contradictory commands do something to its mind and make it become like this?
Takumi could not work out the exact reason.
In truth, he did not have the luxury of thinking for long. The growing sense of separation between his body and mind forced him to focus more on how to preserve his sense of self.
He began to feel himself drifting farther and farther away from this world, felt himself falling endlessly into a dark abyss, helplessly sinking deeper and deeper, as though more and more hands were grabbing at his thoughts and keeping him from escaping.
Don't fall asleep…
Takumi told himself that in the depths of his mind.
No matter what… I absolutely cannot fall asleep…
He repeated it to himself again and again, forcing himself to stay conscious for twenty whole minutes. Only when the darkness descended again and Principal Elephant's control over his body disappeared did he finally struggle to suck in a breath, then reach out, grab the machete's hilt, and forcibly pull it out of his shoulder.
Alice still did not approach. She only watched him from a distance.
Takumi staggered toward the crack he had smashed open in the wall. The moment he stepped out, he ran into a patrolling Sister Flashlight. Before Takumi could make any kind of response, the thing's lamp head inexplicably turned into a huge bloody maw and bit down violently, almost tearing his head off with a crunch.
Crunch!
The blade came down, chopping off its head, then carving through its body, dismembering the twisted monster.
With half his face nearly chewed away and one side of his skull slightly caved in, Takumi swayed on the verge of collapse. He took out the medicine bottle and swallowed three more pills, and only then did the damage to his body begin to recover.
The more I take, the weaker the effect gets. Is it because the Aberration tied to this Obsession Item has been suppressed, causing the item's own effect to gradually weaken too? Figures. Good things and bad things always come together.
Takumi kept moving forward.
Then he was blocked by groups of Students.
This time they closed in from both front and back. There was nowhere for Takumi to dodge. He could only rely on Hedda's Blessing to reduce the damage from Aberrant wounds, then force his way through with the machete in hand.
"Hah… hah…"
Takumi staggered through the ground littered with severed limbs and blood, then collapsed onto the floor, only to force himself back up again.
That bloodstained machete had already fused with his hand. He could no longer take it off.
And just now, he had seen something.
When he cut apart those Students, he seemed, vaguely, to have glimpsed fragments of scenes. He saw students fleeing in all directions, saw a blood-red machete swinging through the air, and heard the agonized gasps of the dying.
This machete is a special Obsession Item meant specifically for the Aberrations inside Fujihana Middle School.
And the process of me using this blade to dismember the Aberrations in this Instance is, in reality, repeating the slaughter from back then. So the more I kill, the more tightly this thing binds itself to me, until eventually it swallows me whole. I thought this thing's side effect was just murderous impulses, but that was only the appetizer?
Takumi forced himself upright again.
Then fell over.
Only then did he realize that one of his legs was already gone, severed halfway up the thigh, leaving behind nothing but a bloody stump.
Ah, right.
One of the Students touched me just now.
That Student's class had been tormented by the Outstanding Students. Every one of them had their legs chopped off and was forced to crawl across the ground in a race, until in the end they bled to death. I wasn't fully touched, just brushed once, so I only lost one leg.
And the skin on my back's been flayed off too. It burns like hell. My chest got burned black like charcoal, though I can't really feel pain there anymore. One of my ears got pierced through the eardrum with a bamboo skewer, and the worm on it has already crawled into the ear canal. Honestly, that one mostly just itches. Besides that, several of my teeth were ripped out, my stomach was cut open in several places and then stapled shut again, and every fingernail on both hands was torn out…
All of those had been things those dead students once suffered. In this school, they were the weakest in terms of power, but once Takumi was touched by them, the way they had died would still be reflected onto his body, leaving him grievously wounded.
Finally… I'm here.
Takumi crawled along the ground for quite a long stretch before finally reaching the passage connecting the second-floor corridor to the Residential Wing.
[Two… two…]
From far away, he seemed to hear something again, and it sounded familiar, but he no longer had the energy to care.
He opened the door.
Beneath the dark sky, the path leading to the Residential Wing lay right before his eyes.
Takumi crawled one step forward.
And was stopped by an invisible wall.
Huh?
Takumi froze.
[If more than two hours pass, then anyone who fails to leave Fujihana Middle School within those two hours will remain here forever.]
At that moment, an Alice that looked as though it had been stitched together from chunks of minced flesh walked past Takumi's side as she spoke.
[Miko actually already knew about this. Unfortunately, she had no way to tell you, teacher.]
Another Alice crouched down in front of Takumi, her body covered in blade cuts, gunshot wounds, and all sorts of injuries, her face full of smiles.
[But even if you had known, it wouldn't have mattered. The teacher can't leave the Teaching Building anymore. Staying in this place for too long causes your very existence to be assimilated by it. If you can't get out within two hours, then you'll never get out at all. And after about another hour, the teacher's mind will be completely assimilated too. No, no, if it's the teacher, then you can probably hold out for two or three more hours. But in the end, you'll still be assimilated completely, and become part of this place.]
Yet another Alice dropped down from the ceiling, giggling as she spoke to Takumi.
"Hah…"
Turning his head back, he saw that expressionless Alice still standing in the distance, still silent, still showing no intention of coming closer.
Takumi closed his eyes.
Then he opened them again and slammed forward viciously.
Bang!
Amid the dull thud, Takumi was sent flying backward and rolled across the ground.
The three Alices following at his side could not help letting out peals of laughter.
And Takumi had already gotten to his feet once more, only to see Students and Teachers closing in on him from all sides again.
Some of those Teachers were ones Takumi had cut down back when he was still wearing the sheep headpiece. After more than an hour had passed, those Aberrations had already returned to their original state. The wounds from where they had previously been hacked apart and dismembered were now reduced to only a few faint traces.
Unless the core catalyst of the Instance was broken, non-derived Aberrations could not be killed. Even being dismembered by this machete merely made them temporarily lose activity; it could not truly destroy them.
"Hah…"
But Takumi still refused to give up.
He knew that, as things stood, there was no path left for him to live.
But surrendering without a fight was something he would never accept.
He could not allow himself to grow accustomed to death. He could not allow himself to rely on returning through death. So even in a hopeless situation where death was certain, as long as it had not truly reached that final step, then until death genuinely descended, he absolutely could not stop struggling.
Takumi forced himself upright, then at that very moment leaped up fiercely.
Click—
One of the Alices following at his side reached out and pressed the corridor light switch, and so Takumi, suspended in midair, was immediately swallowed by bright light.
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